Council turns up the heat with €2.4m new boilers plan

All Council houses in the city are in line to get a new boiler in the coming years.

Galway City Council has announced it is rolling out a boiler replacement programme on its social housing stock of more than 2,000 homes.

The first of the new boilers will be installed in 2017.

Edel McCormack, Head of Finance, said the planned expenditure of €400,000 every year for the next six years was a “significant investment” in social housing heating systems.

However, the amount to be invested each year was subsequently changed by the ruling pact.

The pact, which includes Fine Gael Labour and five Independents, voted to divert €58,000 of funding earmarked for boilers, into other projects. They also extended the term of the programme of investment from six years to seven.

Despite the change, the total amount to be spent on the boiler replacement will remain the same – some €2.4 million has been earmarked for the works.

Meanwhile, it was confirmed that the City Council must pay a combined €200,000 to Government to cover the cost of the Local Property Tax on its stock of social houses.

The local authority was not exempt from paying LPT, the budget meeting was told.

City Councillor Collette Connolly sought clarification on how much local property tax was being spent in Galway City.

Ms McCormack confirmed that the City Council takes in €8.1 million in property tax but it only gets to spend €6.48 million of that.

The remaining €1.62 million is redistributed by the Department of Environment to other local authorities around the country to help them run their towns. None of the €1.62 million comes back to Galway City, she confirmed.

The Department also stipulated that 35.2% of all property tax collected must be spent by the City Council in the area of housing.